Strays
by FrozenxWonder
Summary: Tony Stark had a way with picking up strays and giving them homes. Tony/Steve, Clint/Natasha
1. Bright Eyed Feline

**Authors Notes: no copyright infringement intended. This is a just for fun project. Feel free to leave reviews and I hope you enjoy!**

**Bright Eyed Feline**

Not many people knew Tony Stark was a cat person. If you looked around his pristine house, you'd assume any animal that dared to shed a hair on the furniture would be shaved and dumped before it knew what happened. At last, that was what Steve had thought when he and the other Avengers moved in. No one had mentioned any kinds of pets other than the large fish tank in one of the upper suites where Tony entertained businessmen. Personally, Steve didn't even think those counted. Strangely though, it turned out Tony was totally welcoming of pets. In fact, about three days after moving in, Steve discovered that at least one pet had been a resident of Stark Tower long before the Avengers.

Natasha had shooed Steve down to Tony's lab to make Iron Man come up and join them for dinner under threat of a painful death at Black Widow's hand. He'd punched in the code and slid into the lab, glancing around for Iron Man himself when he spied the creature sitting right beside a snoozing Tony Stark.

Perched atop one of the most cluttered workbenches like it owned the place was a sleek black cat. It had a white belly and four delicate white socks and shockingly blue eyes. Seeing it made Steve stop in his tracks and stare. The cat simply looked up at him with a strangely intelligent gleam in its eyes, tail tip twitching. Stark was passed out, slumped over the table dead to the world, the cat sitting beside him like some kind of guard. When he finally got himself together and went closer, Steve saw a light blue collar around the cat's neck and a tag. He couldn't see the name but there was a large SI engraved on one side of the tag that Steve assumed stood for Stark Industries.

Shaking Tony's shoulder, Steve couldn't look away from the cat as the billionaire genius jerked awake with a grunt and sat up, hair flattened on one side of his head and sticking up on the other. Tony yawned and stretched, muttering something about stars and stripes, sleepily rubbing the cat's ears as Steve watched. The cat instantly began to purr.

"What'd'ya want?" Tony grumbled, one hand still massaging the cat's ears, the other rubbing his eyes.

Shaking his head, Steve looked away from the cat and down at Tony. "Uh, Tasha says you have to come up and eat or else she'll reinvent Chinese Water Torture," Steve reported.

Tony instantly wrinkled his nose at the mention of food. "She's going to poison us, I know it. What time is it anyway?"

"Almost six thirty," Steve said, glancing again at the cat. It was still staring at him with unwavering blue eyes. "Uh, Stark, what's with the cat?"

"It's Tony," Tony corrected, almost before Steve finished speaking, scrubbing his hands over his face, "and it's not 'the cat'. This is Glados."

Steve stared. "What kind of name is Glados?"

"An insane super computer from a video game, you wouldn't know but I'll send you a copy," Tony explained breezily, stretching as luxuriously as any cat would. Steve chose to ignore the sound of his teammate's back adjusting as he did so. "Anyway, I picked her up sometime last year, well actually she snuck into the lab somehow and made it clear she wouldn't leave. She's really smart, and only partially because I made her that way. She can understand English so don't insult her."

Steve had just reached out to pet the cat when Tony mentioned her being smart. His hand stopped in mid-air. "She…can understand English?"

"Yup. And a few other languages, just the main ones, French, Spanish, Portugese, Japanese, most Chinese dialects, stuff like that. Pepper wanted me to get a service dog or something just in case the arc reactor acted up or I got attacked and someone yanked it out again, something that could get help and show instructions on how to replace the reactor," Tony rambled, picking up the black cat, Glados, and putting her on the ground as he got up. "Glados came along so I made her smart enough to know what to do and understand if I gave her commands but she's a stickler for being polite. Give it a try Cap." Tony gestured toward the cat, resting his hands on his hips and looking expectantly at Steve.

Steve in turn stared at the cat. Glados turned her luminous blue eyes to look up at him, tail twitching in an expectant manner. "Uh..." What did you order a cat to do?

Tony rolled his eyes. "Glados, pull up schematics 4593 uno sterling alpha," Tony barked, tacking on a please at the end.

The diamond shaped tag on Glados' collar glowed vivid blue-white and a holographic image floated at eye level like Tony's stupidly futuristic computers that still dumbfounded Steve. The image, or images rather, were blueprints for…Steve's shield. At least, they looked like Steve's shield with mild modifications. Lists of equations, links to different models and test results hovered beside the semi-translucent images.

"She's kinda like a mini JARVIS except she doesn't talk back unless she pulls up the thought-to-text program but that's just a prototype, gets a little scrambled sometimes." Tony tapped one of the translucent images to pull up a more in-depth image of the shield for a half second before closing out the whole thing. "Forget you saw that Capsicle, at least until your birthday." A patented Tony Stark smirk followed the statement. Steve stared at his eccentric teammate.

"That cat…Glados or whatever, she can…talk?" Steve stammered, the shield plans totally forgotten.

"Yup but like I said, it doesn't work one hundred percent yet. The next version will. Cats just have odd brains. Come on, I think I hear dear Natasha getting ready to…"

"TONY STARK! STEVE ROGERS! GET UP HERE NOW BEFORE THE FOOD GETS COLD!"

Tony smirked at the ceiling. "Yes mom!" he hollered back before taking Steve by the elbow and steering him toward the lab door, Glados trotting along behind him. "Come on Cap, time to introduce the real lady of the house to the rest of the family."


	2. Brothers in the Storm

**Brothers in the Storm**

Tony swirled the gin around his glass, leaning against the kitchen counter and peering out the windows. There wasn't much to see besides the washed out New York skyline. It was raining cats and dogs while lightning flashed through the sky with thunder rumbling every so often. All in all it was a quiet night for the Avengers with no obnoxious calls from Fury to go save the world. Each superhero was taking the chance to relax a bit after a nasty sludge monster battled two days ago.

Natasha and Clint had taken off for dinner and a show on Broadway, mostly Natasha's choice though Tony had heard her promising Clint they'd go to a shooting range afterwards. Bruce was reading up on some new theories in one of Tony's extensive libraries six floors down and Steve was up in their room sketching or sleeping, something like that. Thor was actually out in the weather, thoroughly enjoying the stormy weather, not that Tony could blame him. Tony loved storms.

A soft meow followed by a light thump made him look over at his left elbow. Balancing delicately along the edge of the counter was Glados, peering up at him with a look that clearly demanded to know why he wasn't upstairs with Steve.

Rubbing the cat's ears, Tony smirked. "I could ask you the same thing little lady. Last time I looked, you were snoozing on his lap."

Glados merely twitched her tail in response. Tony rolled his eyes. Snarky cat.

Gathering his feline companion in his arms, Tony was about to head for his and Steve's bedroom when none other than Captain America appeared in the kitchen, apparently trailing after the cat. Tony cocked his head to the side curiously.

"I was just about to come looking for you," Tony chirped. "What's up?"

"Thor gave me a call, he wants some help with something." Steve explained, tugging on the worn brown leather jacket he wore everywhere.

Tony raised an eyebrow, depositing Glados on a barstool. "Thor used the phone I gave him? Correctly? Will miracles never cease? Anyway, Fury didn't call, should I suit up? Call the others?"

Something about how Steve's lip quirked instantly made Tony suspicious. "Nope, nothing so fun. I'll be back in a bit, don't wait up."

Before Tony could say anything else, he got a quick peck on the lips before Steve was off jogging for the elevator. That left Tony staring after his boyfriend with Glados looking the same way, tail twitching. Looking down at his cat the young genius wondered if he was just imagining that Glados looked like she knew something he didn't. She probably did, she was too smart for her own darn good.

"Wanna tell me what those two are plotting?" Tony asked, leaning on the kitchen island beside the barstool. Glados just jumped down and trotted away, tail held high.

Shrugging, Tony reached for his glass of gin and padded off toward his lab.

* * *

Steve didn't like leaving Tony hanging, mostly because it never ended well. Tony was a genius and too curious to let things drop. That was why they had to be quick. Jogging through the soggy streets of New York, collar tugged up against the wind, Steve peered a street sign before picking up the pace. He was almost there. Finally he spied a narrow little alley, barely as wide across as Steve's shoulders between an Italian deli and a video rental store. Ducking between the buildings, Steve peered into the damp shadows.

"Thor? You down here?"

"Aye Captain," Thor boomed, voice only slightly quieter than the thunder.

Making his way down the narrow alley, Steve glimpsed his teammate crouched on the wet pavement peering at something curiously. He didn't see what it was until he got closer. It was a pair of…puppies. One was as inky black as the night sky and the other a sunny golden blond. Crouching down near Thor, Steve held out his hand to the shivering little beasts curled close to the demigod against the wind and rain.

"How'd you find these little guys?" Steve asked, watching the blond one sniff his wet palm and shuffle toward him.

"I spotted a suspicious package on the corner of the road and decided to investigate. These two were inside it," Thor explained. The Asgardian peered at Steve through the rain. "Dogs are noble companions in my home, not to be left disregarded on the street."

Steve couldn't really disagree there, he'd always loved dogs. In fact, watching the blonde one leave its brother to investigate him made his heart melt a little. Running his fingers through the wet fur, Steve bit his lip. Picking up the blond pup, Steve checked. Male. Reaching for the black one, he repeated and found another male. Brothers, alone in a storm. Handing the black one back to Thor and examining the blond one, Steve sat back on his heels and held up the dog the eye level, nearly nose to nose with it. He chose to ignore how Thor was watching him with intense hopefulness, the black pup held in his muscular arms with more gentility than Steve had thought possible.

The blond dog met Steve's gaze, its tail wagging slowly, seemingly unbothered by being held in midair by a stranger. After a moment, the dog lunged forward and licked Steve's nose and barked. Steve was done for.

"Alright, let's get these guys outta the rain."

Thor beamed so hard Steve thought his face would break. "A just decision Captain," the god boomed in approval, holding the black pup under his arm as he straightened up.

Pondering how he was going to ask Tony if they could keep the dogs, Steve did the same, cradling the blond pup. Looking at the little dog though, he couldn't stop from grinning too.

* * *

Two months later, Steve woke with a start as something heavy landed on his stomach and instantly vaulted off again. The sound of skittering claws met his ears as he bolted upright with a gasp, Tony beside him doing the same and nearly falling out of bed. Huffing and coughing, Steve grabbed Tony's bicep before Iron Man threw himself out of the bed. Somewhere out of sight, a dog barked and Glados gave an indignant squealing snarl.

"What a wakeup call," Tony grumbled, massaging his stomach where Buck had trodden on him.

Steve huffed out a laugh in agreement, throwing off the blankets and getting up. "I told you to lock the kennel last night or else this would happen."

Each morning Buck and Fenrir would get it into their heads that the entire house needed to be woken up via jumping on the bed and running over the bed's occupants. At least, when it came to Tony and Steve that was how Buck did it. Fenrir tended to lick your face and step on your stomach until you felt like you'd gone ten rounds with a professional boxer. Buck would forgo the traditional wakeup call if he was put in his kennel at night and let out only after Tony and Steve were both up. Fenrir could be dissuaded with a simple closed door. Apparently Tony had forgotten to lock up Buck for the night.

"Sorry sorry, I forgot," Tony said, dragging himself up and pulling on a shirt and sweats before padding toward the door, Steve trailing behind, chuckling at his boyfriend's haphazard hair.

When the pair made it to the kitchen it was to the sight of Natasha and Clint shuffling in from another doorway. Bruce was leaning near the coffee maker, sipping his drink and looking mussed. Thor came tromping in moments later, booming morning greetings with a tail-wagging Fenrir on his heels. Glados was perched on top of the island looking thoroughly hassled. Apparently everyone had been woken up by the dogs. Buck came in after Fenrir, jaws parted and tongue hanging out as he pranced right over to Steve and looked up imploringly, asking for breakfast.

Feeding the dogs, Steve stood back and looked around the kitchen. Clint was grabbing a carton of eggs from the fridge while Thor laughed at Tony's bedhead and said genius glared at the slow coffeemaker. Natasha bumped her hip against Bruce's and the two shared a joke, no doubt at Tony's expense and the dogs ate noisily in their little corner while Glados glared at their sloppy manners. For their parts, the dogs had grown fabulously after being adopted into the Avengers family. Already they had put on weight and muscle, their long coats sleek and soft. Tony had made collars with honing signals and the SI mark on each one. Fenrir's collar was steel gray and red against his black coat while Buck's was red and blue against the blond fur. The dogs were still young but they had come a long way since being strays and at the moment were in the midst of an intensive course to become search and rescue certified in almost every terrain and scenario known to man with a little intelligence serum to boot, three drops in their food daily for three months according to Tony's schedule.

All in all, the scene was total chaos but in Steve's eyes it was perfect.

"Hey, earth to Captain Spandex, want some joe?" Tony called over the racket, holding up a cup with Steve's shield on it, a Stark Industries cup in his other hand.

"Yeah," Steve called, watching the cup get passed from Tony to Natasha near island to Clint at the stove to Thor near the fridge and finally to him. Breathing in the scent, he leaned back against the wall and watched Clint scramble eggs while Natasha watched with a critical eye, hiding his smile behind his cup.


	3. Too Damn Smart

**Too Damn Smart**

"You want me to what?"

Tony was a genius. He had certificates to prove it. He'd gone to two ivy league collages before he turned 21. He was no fool and his hearing was perfect. At the moment though, Tony was seriously considering a hearing aid.

Across the lab table, Bruce folded his arms. "I want you to help me administer an intelligence test to this rat."

Nope. He had heard Banner right apparently. Hazel eyes looked down to the rat in question. It looked like a normal rat, albino but normal. It was squeaking around on the table, inspecting a few tools. Was Tony imagining it or was the rat…no, it wasn't reading that printout. Rats don't read. Tony glanced over at Glados, perched on a chair looking at the rat. Tony looked back at the rat and then up at Banner.

Bruce looked totally serious.

Walking around the table, Tony reached up toward Bruce's forehead. Frowned Bruce ducked away from him, swatting at his hand. "What are you doing?"

"Making sure some fever from outer space hasn't fried your brain," Tony said, totally serious, frowning at his companion. "You're asking me to give an intelligence test to a rat. A lab rat. Why?"

Bruce chewed his bottom lip, glancing at the rat and rubbing the back of his neck. Finally he mumbled something but Tony only crossed his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow. Bruce glanced at him and sighed, finally dropping his hand away from his neck.

"It was…a serum I was investigating…"

"Wait, messing up one serum wasn't enough?" Tony demanded, leaning his hip against another table. Bruce blushed but didn't say anything. Tony rolled his eyes. "What kind of serum was it? I think I've got an idea but I wanna hear this one."

Incoherent mumbling.

"Speak up please, a little Hulk roar even would be ok."

"…intelligence serum."

Almost before the syllables left Bruce's mouth, Tony facepalmed, he couldn't help it. Dragging his hand from his forehead down to his chin slowly, Tony kept his eyes closed for a few seconds before opening them and looking at Bruce.

"We already have an intelligence serum. Worked great on Glados, she knows every file in the entire Stark Industries database and my own personal database which is pretty extensive I'll remind you. Oh, and the fact that Buck and Fenrir can remember how to save people in more than three hundred scenarios and understand English and Russian commands kinda shows that it works pretty damn well. How did you modify it?" Tony demanded, putting his hands on his hips in a pose he refused to admit came from Steve.

Bruce had the decency to look sheepish. He knew Tony wasn't a fan of someone meddling with his things. Using them was fine, trying to 'improve' them tended to ruffle the CEO's feathers. Bruce sighed and put his hand on the table. The rat scampered up his arm to rest on his shoulder. Its red eyes peered at Tony.

"I wanted to see if we could make it more potent. It took four months to reach a stable IQ with the dogs and I saw the records on Glados that it took almost six months. I just thought if we were going to use for rescue animals, we could at least make it not take so long," Bruce explained, forcing himself to meet Tony's intense gaze. "I wanted to see if I could concentrate it to the point where you would just need a week, tops, to make a stable IQ change in a canine. I concentrated it and modified the ingredient list a bit but when I went to dose this little guy, one of the techs knocked over the test tube rack. Instead of getting a drop, this little guy got soaked."

Tony groaned and closed his eyes for a long moment. "It took six months with Glados because I had to develop the serum. The dogs are way bigger than she is so it took longer to dose them. If you made that concentrate strong enough for a 150 pound dog and doused a rat with it, there's no telling what could happen," Tony said at last, opening his eyes and glaring at the offending rat. He could have sworn it glared back.

Bruce shrugged and met Tony's gaze, straightening up. "You never knew what would happen with me."

Tony opened his mouth to argue that a big green rage monster was more predictable than a potentially super genius rat when he realized how dumb that would sound and snapped his mouth shut. For several moments, he struggled with a valid argument for getting rid of the rat before at last he just sighed. Rubbing his eyes, Tony didn't bother looking up.

"Fine, you can keep it. Just…we'll watch it for a month and see how this stuff evolves. If it gets out of hand the rat's got to go. Got it?" Tony peered at Dr. Banner intently.

Bruce's lips quirked but he tried to keep a straight face as he nodded. "Got it."

Reaching out, Tony opened his hand. The white rat leaped off of Banner's shoulder and into Tony's palm. Raising the red-eyed animal up to eye level, Tony peered at it, turning his hand and looking at it from different angles.

"What's its name?" he asked at last.

Before Bruce could answer, the rat leaped out of Tony's hand and onto a desk. It scampered across the desk, both geniuses following it until it leaped onto a keyboard. With several decisive hops, the rat typed out "OCTAVIAN" on the screen. The damned little rat proceeded to type out the same name in eight different languages. Jumping off the board, it looked up at them with decidedly too intelligent red eyes. Tony looked at the screen, then at Bruce. They stared at each other for a long moment before bursting out laughing.


	4. I Caught a Snipe

**I Caught a Snipe**

Clint poked his head through the doorway, glancing in all directions before easing himself through the doorway. The shared living space for the Avengers was empty. Thor had gone off with Steve to meet some woman named Jane and Tony was supposedly at a business meeting. Clint had a hard time believing the last one honestly, he'd never seen Tony actually sit down and work or anything close to it but at the moment he was grateful that everyone was at least gone. Glancing at the box in his arms, Clint licked his lips and glanced around nervously. Still no one. Suspicion tickled at the assassin when not even the dogs came to greet him.

"JARVIS, where is everybody?" Clint asked, striding across the hall and into the living room.

"Mr. Stark is away attending a business meeting, Thor and Mr. Rogers are also attending a meeting of a more personal nature. Agent Romanoff is in her reading room," JARVIS reported dutifully.

"What about the animals?" Clint prompted, shifting the box in his arms and looking around for the normally boisterous dogs or even Glados to be perched somewhere weird. No barking, no claws on the hardwood, no glowing blue eyes.

"I believe Mr. Rogers and Thor chose to have the canines accompany them to their meeting and Glados is currently located in Mr. Stark's personal lab."

"Fantastic," Clint chirped, striding more confidently through the house now that he knew it was empty. He headed right for Natasha's reading room, a small library space Tony had allowed her to designate as hers. It was a room right next to her bedroom with a full view of the New York skyline and fully stocked shelves. Without knocking, Clint shouldered his way past the door. "You won't believe what I just found!"

Natasha peeked over a copy of Gone With the Wind as Clint barged in and raised an eyebrow. "What's in the box Barton?"

"Guess," Clint challenged, plopping down in one of the chairs across from the one Natasha was curled up in, keeping the box balanced on his knees.

Natasha set the book aside and looked the box over carefully. FRAGILE was stamped on one side and it was from a supermarket in Nebraska. That right there set off alarm bells since Clint was still in his field gear, obviously just back from an assignment. In Lincoln Nebraska of all places. Natasha frowned, leaning back a bit to meet Clint's gaze. He looked like a kid with a particularly sweet surprise.

"You don't normally bring home souvenirs," Natasha commented sourly, crossing her legs, putting her elbow on her thigh and resting her chin in a cupped hand. "This had better be good."

"Go on, guess," Clint urged, beaming from ear to ear until Natasha thought his face would break.

Natasha raised an eyebrow.

* * *

Tony had gotten used to strange pets running around the tower. Between Buck, Fenrir, Glados and Octavian, he didn't think it could get any more unusual until the day he walked into one of the many living rooms used by the Avengers. Pepper was trailing behind him telling him all about the fun she and Coulson had been having in picking out a cat for their apartment when he spied Clint sitting on one of the couches regarding a cardboard box on the floor. A red stamp on the side declared the contents to be 'fragile' and black writing on it said the box had come from some grocery store in Nebraska.

Curiosity piqued, Tony vaulted over the couch, ignoring the tablet Pepper had been trying to make him look at. His gaze zoomed in on the contents of the box sitting between Clint's feet. It was…

"Oh you've got to be kidding," Tony groaned, closing his eyes and hoping the box and its contents would disappear.

"What?" Clint squawked, "I just found it!"

"But you found it and you'll want to keep it," Tony replied, still not opening his eyes as he heard Pepper come around the couch to peer into the box too.

"You didn't shoot it did you?" Pepper asked, ignoring her boss's melodrama.

"Of course I didn't!" Clint insisted, squawking again in Tony's opinion. Either SHEILD had done too well on his codename or Clint was coming to embody the damn thing.

"Then how did it get like that?" Pepper asked.

"It looks like some idiot shot it but I certainly didn't, I wouldn't have been that sloppy or that stupid," Clint said, shifting beside Tony.

Finally Tony forced his eyelids open and peeked down at the box. It was still there, nestled amid soft packing materials. A hawk. A red-tailed hawk to be exact. One of its wings was broken and the thing looked thoroughly doped up but it was a hawk, in a box in his living room. Scrubbing his hands over his face, Tony sighed and stood up, snatching the forgotten tablet from Pepper's hand and scrolling through it.

"No we're not taking this offer, it's a bad investment. Tell them to stop asking," Tony barked, passing the tablet back. Casting one last look at the hawk, he left the couch and headed for the lift, Pepper hopping up to follow. "You can keep it but that thing can NOT fly around in the house all day!" Tony called back.

Clint waited until the elevator doors slid shut before whooping in delight just as Natasha rounded the corner.

"I told you, he can't say no," she gloated, plopping down beside Clint and leaning against his side. "Too much of being ignored by daddy when he was a kid, always had pets, can't turn them down now."

"Good thing too otherwise I think he'd have some heartbroken Avengers," Clint chuckled, reaching down to stroke the sleeping bird's feathers.

Natasha rolled her eyes.

Clint just beamed down at the bird, stroking its back with the backs of his fingers. "Welcome to the family Sniper."


End file.
